I don't collect Ptolemaic coins (unless minted in Cyrene), so I'm not up on the latest and greatest on gold from the period. But, unless coins from this ruler of this size are particularly rare, I'm underwhelmed by the news. I've seen better condition large sized Ptolemaic gold in just about all of the catalog sales.

On a related note, why is it that we're getting all of this coin-related news flashes from finds in Israel? Are they not finding anything else there that is news worthy from an archeological stand-point? I don't get it.

The news is huge, first of all, for Israel itself ("the coin ranked in the top five of the rarest finds in that country's history", "the heaviest gold coin with the highest contemporary value of any coin ever found in an excavation in Israel", "It is only the second gold Ptolemaic coin ever found in Israel."). And besides, not every day archeologists find one ounce ancient gold coins.

O.K., it's just that this is the 3 or 4th coin-related Israel story we've seen in about 1 year. The paranoid in me sees the increased media attention of coin-related finds as potentially hurtful to the collector community's efforts to keep coins out of the cultural transfer prohibitions.

O.K., it's just that this is the 3 or 4th coin-related Israel story we've seen in about 1 year. The paranoid in me sees the increased media attention of coin-related finds as potentially hurtful to the collector community's efforts to keep coins out of the cultural transfer prohibitions.

J

The paranoid in me agrees with you 100 per cent, J.
And finds this Year of Israel in archeology and numismatics rather odd too.